Imagine two branches of
service in the Government of India. The two branches are different in substance
and in the perception of the citizens. One branch has its halo effect and is considered
both glamorous and praiseworthy in public perception. The other branch is often
pejoratively titled “babudom”.
Now consider the following points:
· The
armed forces have their uniforms
and shiny medals. The bureaucrats have none.
· Generals,
Admirals and Air Marhsals sport three stars on their vehicles, and sometimes
four stars. Even officers of the rank of Brigadier sport a star. The bureaucrats of similar
seniority have to make do with just a red or blue light. Lest you consider this
a trivial matter not worthy of the attention of a senior bureucrat, consider
this – when my brother, an Air Commodore, was posted as India’s Air Attache in
Washington, he was entitled to put a single star – the US Army’s designated
insignia for a brigadier level officer – on his vehicle. This gave him certain
parking and other privileges in specified buildings. His administrative
superior – an officer belonging to the Indian Foreign Service – actually urged
my brother to remove the star from his car since he, the senior officer, was
not entitled to it.
· The
armed forces, with their bemedalled heroes guarding our boundaries, and their
fighter pilots, navy commanders etc. garner favourable publicity in the media
and are viewed as services with an air of professionalism and macho. They carry
an aura of glamour. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, do not have such an
image – in fact, they are widely considered to be working in musty offices,
surrounded by files and aided by often sloppy staff, who the average citizen
encounters in his or her daily life.
This dichotomy between the two appears to have affected the bureaucratic
wing adversely as far as their attitude towards the defence wing is concerned.
The closest we can express this attitude in psychological terms is by
saying that they suffer from penis-envy.
Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of a little
girl's envy of the penis in his 1908 article "On the Sexual Theories of
Children," and developed the idea later in his work “On Narcissism”.
Subsequantly, his theory has been overtaken by more accurate theories of female
sexuality by psychologists such as Eric Ericson ad Jian Paget. It has also been
criticised by feminists and others. However, here we are not dealing with the
girl child’s psychological development. We are concerned with a similar emotion
amongst India’s bureaucrats vis a vis our Armed Forces where this theory does appear to apply
rather closely.
The bureaucrats subconsciously appear to wish that they had more glamour in
their profession, that they had smart, uniformed assistants and starred
vehicles and be-medalled uniforms. Acquiring these appears as difficult as the
girl’s covert wish to acquire a penis. However, unlike the girl child, the
bureaucrats can do something about it. They may not be able to acquire a penis
for themselves, but they leave no occasion to try and castrate the armed
forces.
In persuance of this effort, the bureaucrats have not permitted even a
single representative of the armed forces –
India’s largest employer – in the Pay Commission.
Another indication of this castration is the order of precedence. This is
the official order in which dignitaries are seated at formal functions and the
ceremonial importance given to each relative to the others. At the time of
independence, the seniormost general was second in the Order of Precedence. Now
the Army Chief is 12th in
this list. The Cabinet Secretary is 11th, as is the Attorney
General. At the 23rd position are “Officers of the rank of
full General or equivalent rank”
on par with Secretaries to the Goverment, Commissioner for
Linguistic Minorities , Secretary, Minorities Commission, Secretary, Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes , Members, Minorities Commission , Members, National
Commission for Scheduled Castes, Members, National Commission for Scheduled
Tribes and a host of others.
There are many other
areas where no opportunity is missed by the bureaucrats to show the armed
forces down.
The overt reason one
hears for maintaining the supremacy of the bureaucrats over the armed
forces is that we should adhere to the principle of “the civilian control of the
army”. However, civilian control does not mean the Chief of India’s Army, who
commands 1.3 million officers and soldiers, apart from 1.4 million reserve and territorial
army personnel, waiting at the pleasure of the bureaucrats manning the Ministry
of Defense. So long as he obeys the orders of a civilian Minister of
Defense, it would ensure the principle of civilian control adequately.
However, the bureaucrats will never agree to this because this argument will
take away one more tool which facilitates the castration mentioned above.
These attempts at
castration of the armed forces by
the bureaucracy are resulting in the demoralisation of our armed forces at all
levels. The retired officers speak about this openly and the serving ones in
hushed tones. This complex of the bureaucrats needs to be recognised for what
it is and, then, needs to be addressed firmly and fairly by the
political masters, Unless this is done, we will continue devaluing the
spear and shield of the country to satisfy the castrative instinct of
the bureaucrats. If a further devaluation of the tools of India's defense
happens, we should not be surprised that, when we need a steely response to danger
on our borders, we will get a wooden one. Then, paradoxically, the
bureaucrats will get one more reason to castrate the armed forces further and the vicious spiral will
continue making holes in our national defense shield.
Kishore Asthana
asthana1@yahoo. com
